The Resurrection and Stones

The Easter Season lasts fifty days, so the following chapter from my book Voices: God Speaking in Creation is still appropriate. Each chapter is a reflection on a physical object mentioned in Scripture. This chapter draws lessons from a stone:

They found the stone rolled away from the tomb, but when they went in, they did not find the body. Luke 24:2

On the morning of the resurrection, women
who went to the Lord’s rock-hewn tomb found that the stone blocking the
entrance was rolled away. In Matthew’s account, the women saw an angel move the
stone and sit on it. This stone was a sign that Jesus broke the bonds of death
and was risen. Just as plants amazingly push up through the nooks and crannies
of rocky crags, Jesus burst forth from the tomb. The corpse in the cave was
transformed into the fully alive and glorified Messiah. Matter could not
restrain him. The stone was moved not to free him but to let visitors peer
inside the tomb.

If
that stone had not been rolled away, if there had been no resurrection, we
probably never would have heard of Jesus. He would have passed into oblivion
along with the millions of other people who once walked our planet and died.
His life and his death would have been insignificant. As it is, the
resurrection gave credibility to the Man and his message and infused the world
with hope. Now we Christians worship Jesus as God. And now we have reason to
believe that death is not a deadend, the end of life, but the gateway to a new
and happier existence. We have reason to believe in a love that is stronger
than death.

A
primary class was preparing to act out the resurrection story. One boy stated
that he wanted to be the large rock. “Why do you want to be the rock?” inquired
his teacher. “So I can let Jesus out,” the child replied.

To let Jesus out. This is our life’s
goal. We want to free him to be alive in us so that his energy may pulsate
through us. The rocks that block him may be boulders or heaps of pebbles,
things like a stubborn will, pride, selfishness, ignorance, laziness, and other
faults. By dint of dynamite or erosion we remove these rocks. Yahweh asks in
Scripture, “Is not my word like fire . . . and like a hammer that breaks a rock
in pieces?” (Jeremiah 23:29). God’s
Word is one tool that can demolish whatever lies between Jesus and us.
Listening to Scripture, reading it, mulling over it, and praying over it can
change us. Sometimes a passage we have heard a thousand times suddenly, with
startling clarity, applies to us.

The life of St. Augustine
demonstrates the potency of Scripture. For the first thirty-two years of his
life, Augustine was alienated from Jesus. To his mother St. Monica’s dismay, he
led a dissolute life and followed the heretical Manichees. He lived with a
woman and had a son by her. Then one day he heard a child’s voice chanting repeatedly,
“Take it and read.” He opened a Bible and read the first passage his eyes fell
on: “Let us live honorably as in the day, not in reveling and licentiousness,
not in debauchery and drunkenness, not in quarreling and jealousy. Instead, put
on the Lord Jesus Christ, and make no provision for the flesh, to gratify its
desires” (Romans 13:13–14).

In
one glorious flash the path to Jesus was cleared for Augustine. He reformed and
became a bishop in Africa as well as a prolific writer and speaker for the
faith. His famous saying expresses the essential discovery of his life: “Our
hearts, O Lord, are restless until they rest in you.”

Once
Jesus is free to act in us, he is released in the world. Through us the power
of his love can penetrate and heal hard places, wounded places, and decaying
places. He can revitalize the earth. Psychotherapist Scott Peck points out that
the word evil is the opposite of live. By reversing evil with Jesus’
help, not only do we live ourselves, but we enable others to live.

With
Jesus living in us, our accomplishments, all the good we do, can be traced to
him. No need to be puffed up by our successes in preaching, teaching,
counseling, or the spiritual life. All is grace. He does more than we can ask
or imagine when we give him free rein. We can rely on him like a rock.

“Rock” was a favorite Hebrew epithet
for God. In Psalm 18 we pray: “The Lord is my rock. . . in whom I take refuge”
(v. 2) “And who is a rock besides our God?” (v. 31), and “Blessed be my rock!”
(v. 46).

How is God like a rock? Rock is
heavy, massive, and hard. It symbolizes might and dependability. When we stand
in a canyon before a huge wall of rock, rest on a slab of granite, or clamber over rocks pounded by
ocean waves, we sense a quiet strength. An educational magazine once recommended
that a dish of pretty, smooth stones be available for angry and aggressive
students to use. Rubbing one of these “serenity stones” restores peace.

This
is God for us: the rock bottom of the universe. He is always there, steady and
silent, inscrutable and invariable. He is the solid Spirit that supports all.
He is the rock of ages.

Happy
are those who make God the rock of their life. These are the people who
acknowledge their dependence on God, make him their center of gravity, and look
to him for help. They are upheld by the assurance of God’s deep and lasting
love for them. Their world may fall apart, yet they stand firm. People may turn
against them, criticize them, threaten them, and attack them, yet they remain
calm. Their plans and projects may disintegrate into nothing, but they do not
despair. They are founded on something far greater than the evanescent cares of
this temporary life on Earth.

Jesus, too, is called rock. Paul saw
the rock that gushed forth water for the thirsty Hebrews in the desert as a
symbol for Christ (1 Corinthians 10:4).
He is our life. Nothing else really matters on this Earth: not our sins, not
our achievements, not John of the Cross, not the charismatic movement, not
Church controversies—only Jesus.

Jesus is the stone rejected by the
builders that has become the cornerstone (Acts
4:11). The whole building of the new creation depends on him. He holds the
Church together. The day Jesus delegated his authority to Simon, he made a play
on words. He changed Simon’s name to Peter, which means rock. He said, “You are
Peter and on this rock I will build my church, and the gates of Hades will not
prevail against it” (Matthew 16:18).
The qualities of rock that correspond to God’s characteristics also mark his
Church: strength and dependability. Popes, heretics, saints, bishops, theologians,
persecutors come and go. The Church remains.

The
Church is founded on rock, as was the house in Christ’s parable. The house
built on sand collapsed under the onslaught of a storm, whereas the house
founded on rock weathered the wind, the rains, and floodwaters. The house on
rock is Jesus’ image for those who hear the word of God and follow it. The
Church, each of us members, is strong and safe as long as we remain faithful to
God, true to our baptismal promises.

This
means that we, too, must become like rock. We must strive to be firm in our
commitments and unyielding to temptations. Perseverance, determination,
faithfulness and loyalty are acknowledged and admired attributes of a person of
integrity. In Homer’s Odyssey,
Penelope is extolled for waiting faithfully for many years for her husband’s
return. She told her suitors she would marry one of them when her knitting was
finished. Then every night she unraveled what she had knit during the day. St.
Thomas More, chancellor of England, is a champion when it comes to being true
to your word. He gave his life rather than be swayed from what was right by his
king-friend.

To be faithful to a commitment for
years, especially when that commitment entails hardship and trials, is a real
achievement. Those who manage to keep their promises through all the
kaleidoscopic changes of life are nothing less than heroic.

In Scripture we are called living
stones. Some of us are igneous rock, formed spontaneously by the fire of the
Spirit. Some are sedimentary rock, formed through long years of layered
material and pressure. Some of us are metamorphic rock, formed through a
drastic change. We may be a diamond or some other precious stone, marble, or
conglomerate, but whatever we are, we are important. Each of us has something
to impart to the Church that no one else has. If we don’t give it, the Church
will be the poorer for it. Together we make the Church what it is.

Stones are smoothed and polished
naturally by the force of crashing waves. This process can be accelerated by a
machine that shakes the stones together. After a few days they are ready to be
set into jewelry and other decorations. Our rough edges are worn off by rubbing
shoulders with one another. It is through the friction of personal
relationships, through conflicts, hurtful truths, compromises, and
reconciliations that we become polished gems. Jean Vanier in Community and Growth wisely observes,
“While we were alone, we could believe we loved every one. Now that we are with
others, we realize how incapable we are of loving, how much we deny life to
others.”

In particular those people who rub
us the wrong way can make us saints. They afford us the opportunity to grow in
many virtues, above all, in love. We should thank God for their presence in our
lives. C.S. Lewis revealed one of the best secrets for strained relationships:
“When you are behaving as if you loved someone, you will presently come to love
him.”

Since the Stone Age, human beings
have exploited the pragmatic side of rock. We’ve built buildings, walls, walks,
and bridges out of stone and fashioned stone tools and weapons. Rocks have
served as paperweights, doorstops, and even as pets. The glory of rock, though,
is achieved when a sculptor chisels it into a work of art. Michelangelo’s David,Moses, and Pietà, for
instance, are among humankind’s most splendid treasures.

Throughout our years on Earth, the
Master Sculptor works on us. With infinite patience and consummate skill, God
chips away at the rough unfinished rock that hides us until our true shape
emerges. Our Creator delicately hones the lineaments and polishes the features,
bringing us to the perfection we are meant to reflect for his glory. When we
are finished,—just as in the Greek myth Galatea who was carved out of ivory and
loved by Pygmalion, her maker, came to life—we will wake to supernatural life. Then
we will live as we have never lived before. The beginning of our transformation
is foretold in Yahweh’s promise to Israel: “I will remove the heart of stone
from their flesh and give them a heart of flesh” (Ezekiel 11:19).

At
Jesus’ triumphal entry into Jerusalem, the Pharisees urged him to stop his
disciples from honoring him and acclaiming him king. Jesus responded. “I tell
you, if these were silent, the stones would shout out” (Luke 19:40). The stones do shout out his greatness, as does the
entire cosmos. The universe is bathed in God. And we, his friends in whom he
dwells, in freedom and full consciousness, cry out in love and admiration:

Blessing and glory and
wisdom

and thanksgiving

and honor and power and
might

be to our God

for ever and ever! Amen. Revelation 7:12

When has God been a rock for you?

What is the difference between a heart of rock and a heart of stone?

PS: The Voices book is available directly from me.

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Great post. I never made the connection between the stone that closed off the tomb and the Church as the rock. Interesting. Also I never noticed the palindrome of evil/live. This post is a wealth of good information! Thanks.

I'm a Sister of Notre Dame, of Chardon, Ohio, the author of eighty-plus books on religious education and spirituality, including a novel, "The Fisherman's Wife: The Gospel According to St. Peter's Spouse." I enjoy giving talks and retreats and was a pastoral associate at St. Dominic Church. I also edit and self-publish books for others.

About Sister Kathleen Glavich, SND

Jesus ordered us to make disciples of all nations and teach them. Mary Kathleen, a Sister of Notre Dame from Chardon, Ohio, responds to this call through writing, speaking, giving retreats, and teaching. Her motto, adopted from Eddie Doherty’s gravesite, is “All my words for the Word.”

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